Percy Jackson And The Sea of Monsters: Again
by VivaAmor
Summary: Annabeth is on a quest that was given to her by the goddess Athena. Out on the Sea of Monsters... Alone. Two long weeks pass without word from her, so Percy sets off on a quest of his own to find her. But runs into an unexpected character along the way.


_This is my first PJO Fanfiction, it is written from Percy's POV, anddddd... I'm an avid Percy Jackson fan. I've read all the books in the PJO series a few times over, and I just recently finished **The Lost Hero**. This was originally only going to be written to be stored on my computer and never looked at again, but I decided for once I'd share my writing. Reviews would be great! :D_

_BTW, I'm not Rick Riordan. Percy Jackson, Annabeth Chase, Blackjack, Rachel Dare, and all other canons are Copyright to Rick Riordan. :)_

_Enjoy! _

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**I Drink Gin With a Sailor**

I stared up at the wooden ceiling of my cabin. My eyes stung with tears that I was determined not to let fall. It had been two weeks since, well… Since she left camp, and every night kept getting more miserable than the last. I couldn't stop worrying. I mean, not that Annabeth isn't totally capable of protecting herself. But it'd been so long since anyone heard from her.

Ah, I guess I should explain to you how this all happened before I go on any more.

See, Annabeth is my girlfriend, since six months ago. She's this really beautiful girl, with wavy blond hair. She doesn't wear a lot of makeup, but she's prettier without it. She has really beautiful grey eyes, like her Mom. Who, by the way, is Athena, the goddess of wisdom and battle strategy. Three weeks ago, Athena gave Annabeth a really, really dangerous quest. I wasn't sure of the specifics, but it meant Annabeth had to sail out into the sea of monsters, all alone. I was pretty sure that Athena did it just so Annabeth and I couldn't be together, or to make us fight. I knew that if Athena really wanted Annabeth and me to fight, we would. And, we did.

I had been trying to convince Annabeth to let me come. I have perfect bearings at sea, so there's no way we would get lost. And considering she got green before too long of being on the deck, I could sail while she rested. I would let her accomplish the quest on her own, I just wanted to kind of stick around, just in case.

But Annabeth took that totally the wrong way.

"Let me come," I'd insisted as we sat together on the dock at camp that overlooked the lake, her hand in mine. She just parted ways with Rachel, our Oracle, but wouldn't tell me the Prophecy.

She smiled, but I could tell she was trying not to be annoyed. "Percy, come on. This is my quest. I can do it. After all, it's not every day a half-blood gets a quest directly from their godly parent."

I nodded, but still pressed. "You get _so_ sick out at sea. Remember when we were sailing on the sea of monsters? I couldn't have done it without you, and vice versa. This time will be perfect. You can handle all of the quest stuff, and I'll man the ship."Then she slipped her hand out of mine and brushed her hair behind her ear with her fingers. "I can do this on my own," She said quietly, and then added under her breath… "I don't need your help."

I think that I must have scoffed or something, because Annabeth's jaw dropped and she stared at me in disbelief. Her stormy grey eyes bore into mine, and I realized that I did something I really was gonna regret.

"You are unbelievable, Percy Jackson!" She shouted as she stood up. I scattered to my feet, but she was already storming away.

I stood there, bewildered, wondering what on earth I was supposed to do now. I saw a couple of girls from the Aphrodite cabin watching with wide eyes over on the next dock. Great, I thought. Now the whole camp is gonna know what a smooth talker I am.

The next morning, Annabeth was gone. Argus had taken her into town to get on a plane to Florida, and she'd sail off from there. At breakfast, I scraped all of my food into the fire, murmured a half-hearted prayer to my father, and then sat down at the Poseidon table miserably for the rest of the time. I had a very bad feeling about what was going to happen...

I waited two weeks and a few days for Annabeth to come back, but she never did. Nobody got any Iris messages from her, nor would any go through to her, and nobody had gone with her. What were the chances she was still even still - No, I told myself. I wasn't going to think that. If she were gone, I would know it. I just would.

So there I was, laying in my cabin, miserable and alone. The only noise I could hear was the gurgle of the saltwater fountain beside my bunk. It was somewhere around two in the morning when I rolled out of bed and walked out my cabin door. I checked my sweat pants pocket out of habit, and sure enough, my pen was there. I walked off the deck of my cabin and down toward the dock, where I sat for a long time. I was surprised that the night guard harpies didn't even notice I was there, but I was sure that before long, they'd smell me. And from there, I'd have to make a mad dash back to my cabin.

I was so focused as I stared at the reflection of the moon on the water, that I didn't even notice someone approaching me from behind.

_Hey, Boss _a voice said in my head.

I sighed quietly, and then glanced back. There stood my black Pegasus, looking pretty upset. His wings were neatly folded and at his side, and he took a sheepish step toward me.

"Hi, Blackjack." I said half-heartedly as I lay on my back on the dock, staring blankly at the stars. Then Blackjack stepped closer to me, and his big head blocked my view. His eyes were filled with concern.

_Anything I can do for you, Boss? I heard about your girlfriend there…_

"I don't need any help, Blackjack." I blurted out, then immediately felt bad. Blackjack stepped out of my line of vision, and I heard him lay down with a thud a few feet away.

_Sorry._

I shook my head and sat up. "Sorry, pal. It isn't you. I'm just… not having a great night." I muttered and stared at the wood grain of the dock. Blackjack nickered quietly in response, and then there was a long silence.

Suddenly, I got a really crazy idea. I looked at Blackjack, and he pulled his head back a little. He stared at me with confusion, as if trying to decide whether or not I'd snapped.

_You okay there, Boss?_

I nodded quickly, and then stood up. "How would you like to go stretch your wings a bit?" I eagerly asked. Blackjack stood up right away and bobbed his head.

_Where to?_ He asked quickly. I told him my idea.

_Whoa, I don't know, Boss. Are you sure about that?_

I told him I was, and then ran off toward the sword practicing arena for some gear.

I've often wondered what mortals see through the Mist. When I have a sword, they see a gun. I ride a centaur, they see a Horse.

How about some teenager with a breastplate and greaves on, flying on a Pegasus through town at three in the morning?

Maybe I didn't want to know. But whatever it was, people were definitely staring.

Blackjack and I made it all the way to Florida with only a few stops along the way. It was somewhere around nine in the morning when we landed on the dock at the harbor. Blackjack folded his wings and hung his head.

_Gee whiz, Boss. That was quite a flight._

I pat him on the neck as I dismounted. "Thanks Buddy." I said quietly. I felt bad that I hadn't really been considering Blackjack's stamina the whole trip. He didn't seem all that upset about it, though.

_Don't mention it. But, hey… You wouldn't mind if I, you know?_ He looked at me with pleading eyes. I nodded.

"Go ahead." His eyes lit up, and he pranced over to a patch of long grass by the water and started eating away. A few people gathered to watch as my P- Excuse me, my _Horse_ grazed. A few kids tried to touch him, but Blackjack snorted in appose and they kept their distance.

I looked around the busy harbor, then back at Blackjack. He was happily pulling the grass out of the ground and swallowing it quickly, then going in for another bite. I thought for a second, and then decided I would wander around a little bit. He deserved some recuperating time.

I wandered down the dock, looking at all of the great sail boats. I wished I could just grab a dingy, sail on over to a boat, get in and take off. But it wasn't as easy as it might seem. And I've heard some sailors can get pretty violent when it comes to trespassers on their boats. Today wasn't a good day to be gunned down by a sailor.

I must've wandered a little too close to a little wooden dingy tied to the dock, because some grungy voice shouted at me from a distance, "If ye' wish to keep your hand, I suggest ye' back away from my dingy, lad!"

I put a hand on Riptide out of habit, and then managed to turn around. I don't know what face I made when I saw the guy, but he didn't like it.

Okay, think of the most stereo-typical Pirate you can come up with. Take away the eye patch, parrot and wooden leg; and put him in a half-unbuttoned flannel shirt that looked like it's been dragged through the mud, and then left on the highway for a week. With jeans that were so worn they were probably as thin as tissue paper, and no shoes - with blackened toenails. That pretty much describes the guy I was facing.

His expression was almost comically distraught. His eyes were big, and bloodshot. As if he'd been awake drinking for a week straight. He shouted curses at me through his thick black beard, which had more than a few grey streaks in it. And possibly housed some sort of woodland creature.

I put both my hands up in defense and stepped away from the dingy. "Chill out, I'm not stealing your dingy." I said. He got closer to me and stood between me and the small boat, and gave me the hairy eyeball.

"Ye' got guts talkin' to someone like me in that tone, boy," He said in a low voice.

_Someone like you? _I thought with a scoff. "Why so protective?" I heard myself say before I could stop myself. Instinctively, I quickly put a hand down onto Riptide. But he didn't seem too bothered by my question.

"Had this dingy for years 'n years, lad. Wouldn't be the first time someone's tried to pry it from me arms."

I glanced down at the dingy, and felt pretty bad. He was so uptight about protecting _this? _I wondered if it looked any better years ago, because now it just looked like some dirty little dingy that's been used for way too long past it's expiration. I looked back at the guy and just now noticed an old - and by old, I really do mean OLD - baseball cap stuck on his head in the mess of hair on his oily head. It looked like if I touched it, it might fall apart. He looked like he was about to say something, but I spoke first.

"Do you still sail?" I asked, again before I could stop myself. I knew I'd hit a sensitive subject, because he gave me an even dirtier look and examined me for a long time before answering.

"Haven't sailed in a long, long time." He simply answered, still studying me as if I'd suddenly grown a third arm.

As I looked at him more, I realized he reminded me a lot of the dingy. Like he'd been kept around for way too long. He was probably somewhere around his seventies, but his eyes looked so much older. He had so many scars that I was sure there wasn't an inch of skin on him that wasn't either callused, scarred or bruised. I was about to ask him why he hadn't sailed for a long time when his shoulders suddenly tensed. He stopped studying me, as if he'd suddenly struck an epiphany.

"Arrgghhh.." He groaned angrily, then stepped back once and looked at me up and down. "I smell the Sea in your blood, Son of the Sea God. Did you think you could hide it?" It seemed like his voice suddenly changed. It radiated a power that I didn't think was existent. I wrapped my fingers around Riptide in my pocket.

"Who are you?"

He stood up a little straighter and braced himself, as if he were actually going to fight me. Despite the fact that I was about a foot taller and he was about 100 pounds heavier, he didn't look afraid.

"Names needn't be thrown around, boy." He whispered. I could almost smell his shrimp breath from where I was standing.

I didn't trust him. In-fact, I had severely mixed feelings about him. He didn't necessarily seem bad, but I was certain that he wasn't on my side. The way he said 'Son of the Sea God' made me think he must've had something against my Dad. Or all Olympians… It wouldn't be a first.

"Who are you?" I repeated, trying not to let my voice crack.

"Pontus." He answered and huffed out his chest. "God of the Sea."

I racked my brain for anything I'd learned about a 'Pontus', and then he said God of the Sea and I looked at him incredulously. "God of the Sea?"

He sneered, showing his ugly old teeth. "Oh, you do think you're smart don't you boy? Your daddy wasn't always the God of the Sea." I noticed he spoke differently now. He didn't throw ye's or yo-ho's around in every sentence now. "I'm not surprised you haven't heard of me. I imagine the Olympians don't want the names of the Protogenos thrown around." He said resentfully. I half-expected thunder to boom somewhere in the distance, but no such thing happened. I wondered if Zeus was even listening.

"Protogenos" I asked stupidly.

"First-born, boy. First generation, if you please. Before the first Golden Age. Before the Olympians."

Before the Olympians, I thought… I hadn't actually ever learned about that period. Nobody liked to talk about it. And I guess I'd never really given it much thought.

I had a lot of questions I wanted to ask, but I knew I had to be careful. Most Gods could disintegrate me if I said something that offended them. I didn't know if that applied for Pontus, too… but I wasn't willing to take a chance.

_Psssst._ A voice said inside my head. I glanced past Pontus and saw Blackjack watching warily. _Everything okay Boss?_ He said in a whisper. Which I didn't quite understand, since nobody but me could hear him, anyways.

_Fine._ I responded back stubbornly, determined to get some answers from this Pontus guy before I ran off. By the time I looked at Pontus, he'd already glanced back and seen Blackjack. "Pegasus, eh? Run along, boy. No need for a dingy when you've got a flyin' horse." That accent was coming back, his shoulders relaxed.

I still didn't trust him, but a part of me (a stupid part, no doubt) wanted to stay and ask him a few questions. "I have a problem. Maybe you can help me." I said. I felt my hand start to get sweaty inside my pocket, but I never took it off of Riptide.

He looked reluctant, "I don't have time for games, boy…"

I cut him off, which was probably a bad idea. But it was part of the ADHD. I was on a roll, and was feeling pretty confident that this guy could help me. "It's my friend, Annabeth. She's missing in the Sea of Monsters."

"How do ye' know she's missing?"

"Well-" I started, but couldn't continue. "Well, you know… She hasn't come back for almost seventeen days… She went on this quest. Her mother, Athena-"

"A daughter of Athena? You needn't be afraid, boy. She'll be fine."

I shook my head back and forth, getting a little upset. "I've got to help her. She really bad with sailing. Zeus knows what could have happened to her by now."

He gave me the evil eye again, and started to tense up. I guess using Zeus wasn't my best idea. "What do you want me to do about it?"

I swallowed. "Well, my Pegasus can't fly all the way out in the ocean-"

"You want to take my dingy?" His voice boomed, and I felt the power in it again. It took all I had not to jump on Blackjack and fly away, but I stood there and pressed.

"No, of course not." I muttered, trying not to sound sarcastic. From the look he gave me, I guessed I hadn't done an amazing job of hiding it. "But if there's some ship lying around…"

"Ships don't just lie around, boy. They carry memories, stories. Souls of those lost at sea. You'd have to do some mighty convincing to get anyone to lend you a boat from this dock."

I narrowed my eyes. "Okay… What kind of convincing?" I had a bad feeling that I'd just said something I was going to regret. Which was confirmed when I saw Pontus's toothy grin.

"You've got spunk, boy. I like that. Maybe you're not so bad after all, for a child of ol' kelp brain up there." I felt a pang of ice hit my gut. Kelp brain, Seaweed brain… Like I needed to be reminded of Annabeth any more. I realized I'd stopped listening to Pontus, so I stared him in the eye and tried to listen to what he was saying. "-but anyways, enough small talk. How would you like to go on a little quest of your own?"

My stomach did a somersault. I wasn't sure if I even had time for another quest… "Annabeth really needs m-"

He cut me off. "Ye' can pick her up along the way. Considering she's still alive, y' might just see her. Now about this quest…"

Pontus had taken me into the port pub that he'd been in before coming out to protect his dingy, to explain this quest to me. Naturally, it was imperative that I try a glass of Gin while he explained this quest to me…

And so, after spending ten minutes hurling in the scummy pub restroom, and listening to him finish explaining this quest while I ate bread and drank water that the bar tender had given me out of pity; I all but fled from the pub toward Blackjack. "Good luck, boy!" He called after me, a scary hint of humor in his voice. "You'll need it!" Something told me he wasn't expecting me to come back.

_Boss!_ Blackjack cried when he saw me, ecstatic. _I wasn't sure you were gonna ever come out of th- Whoa, Boss. You all right?_ I must've been a little green still from the gin.

"I'm fine," I told him quickly. Then I explained to him the quest that Pontus gave me. I also told him who Pontus was, and for whatever reason, it made him pretty uneasy.

_I'm glad that guy wasn't the one who came up with the absolutely brilliant idea of horses, _Was about all Blackjack had to say about him.

My ship awaited me.

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_So what did you all think? I'm not gonna say "X amount of reviews for next chapter"... But I would like to see at least a couple before I write the next one. Are you interested in seeing more?_

_Just so everyone knows, Pontus indeed was the God of the Sea before the Olympians, according to Greek Mythology. Whether or not the way I depict him or the way I explain his past and feelings about the Olympians is completely accurate to all the myths, I do not know. Just go with the flow and pretend Ms. Author actually knows something. Don't take him too seriously. ;)_

_Thanks for reading _

_xoxo_

EDIT~~~ I'm not going to be continuing this story. Not for a long time, anyways. Subscribe if you're willing to wait a long time for the next chapters! Thanks~


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